This morning, as I busy about my morning routine, plucking my nose hairs and looking for sign of reverse male pattern baldness, I heard yet another personal finance guru taking calls and blathering on with simplistic answers on how to “make it” in this dreadful economy.

Without stereotyping the whole lot of them, many of the personal finance folks say the same thing… something like:

“Mary, what I’d like you to do is save 3-6 months of your monthly income.” or “OK Bill, you just need to decrease the amount you spend on credit and go to an all cash system.”

Hey, personal finance guru, I have a question…

What do you do if you can’t save a dime because your clients numbers have dropped and you have been paying for business expenses with an almost maxed out credit card?

You see, my wife is a service provider, and, not too long ago, I was too… Clients are much harder to come by and even when you get them they are harder to keep. Telling a service-based business owner to just save more while the economy is imploding borders on the ridiculous, don’t you think?

So, as I made my way out of the steamy bathroom and I cooled down  bit I began to realize why that segment struck such a chord in me. For the past year, after I would come home form work, I’ve been helping my wife build her client base and improve her online presence… because the economy was sinking and she was struggling.

If I would have told her to “just save more” or cut the credit cards and go “cash-only” she’d be out of business and I’d be to blame.

I did try to “outsource” her problems to a local marketing agency but at $100+ an hour, there is nothing they could have done that would justify the bill she would have been left with.

Fortunately, I had the resources (not necessarily the time) to help her get more clients and build her business despite the recession we are all slowly plowing through. And… while learning about her business and how to get her client on the Inernet was not easy, I sincerely enjoyed it.  So much so that I decided to inject the knowledge and experience I gleaned into a business specifically geared to help service-based businesses get more clients through Internet marketing.

I suppose, instead of creating a bunch of practical guides, I could have tried to get on TV by billing myself as a marketing guru and told everyone to deal with the economic slump by just “getting more clients”… but that’s not me.

I’d rather get my hands dirty and see what really helps each type of  service business get more clients.